


Nightmares

by buttons_n_bose



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Brooklyn, Canon Era, Comforting after nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, New York, Newsies - Freeform, Nightmares, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, The Refuge, sprace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 23:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19413187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttons_n_bose/pseuds/buttons_n_bose
Summary: While staying overnight in Brooklyn, Race wakes up from a nightmare of his time at the refuge. Spot is quick to comfort his boyfriend.





	Nightmares

Race bolted awake, breath shaky and forehead dripping with sweat. He’d had the dream again, the same dream he’d been having for years. He just hoped he hadn’t been screaming.  
"Race?”  
Race swore under his breath. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up the boy sleeping next to him. “Yeah?”  
“Everythin’ okay?”  
“Yeah, Spot.” Race ran a hand through his hair. “It’s all good. Go back to sleep.”  
“Nope, sorry.” Spot groaned and rolled over. “You’re lying.”  
“What makes you think I’m lying?”  
“‘Cause you’re tapping morse code on the bed again,” Spot replied like it was obvious. “You do that when you’re upset.”  
“I do?” Race looked down at his hand in surprise. He’d never noticed.  
“Didja have another nightmare?”  
"‘Another’ makes it sound like I have ‘em all the time.” Race adjusted the blankets around him.  
Spot shrugged. “You kinda do.”  
“Do not.”  
“Not all the time,” Spot corrected himself, “just...sometimes.” When Race didn’t reply, Spot sat up and placed a comforting hand on the tall boy’s knee. “Hey, tell me what happened.”  
Race paused, taking comfort in the silence of Spot’s room. “It was the refuge.”  
Any residue exhaustion Spot had vanished. Race almost never talked about the refuge: it was one of the worst periods of his young life, and he wanted so badly to forget it. The most information Spot had gotten out of his boyfriend was that Race was fairly new to the newsboy life when he was captured, and he had served his time with the infamous Jack Kelly. Race usually shut down when it came to talking about the refuge, but Spot firmly believed that talking about it would help Race cope with what happened.  
“D’you…” Spot knew the answer to the question already, but what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn’t ask? “D’you wanna talk about it?”  
“Sure,” Race mumbled, catching both of them by surprise.  
Really? Spot wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to break the spell Race seemed to be under.  
“Whenever I dream about it...it’s always flashbacks, not fears.” Race pulled his legs to his chest and hugged them tightly. “It’s hell there, Spottie. Everyone’s miserable and the guards is rude and the food, ya can’t even eat it, and that’s when they remembers to feed ya.”  
“What do you see?” Spot’s voice was softer than he’d ever sounded. “When you dream about it, I mean.”  
“Just memories,” said Race vaguely. “Tryna sleep while some kid’s cryin’ in the corner bunk. Marchin’ back an’ forth for no reason in the courtyard. Wincin’ every time the guards passed us…”  
Spot heard Race sniffle, and he felt around for the Race’s hand under the covers. As soon as he found it, Race’s thin fingers entwined with Spot’s strong ones and he squeezed Spot’s hand tightly. Spot gave him an encouraging squeeze in return.  
“Y’know it’s okay to cry, right?”  
“I’m not cryin’,” Race insisted, wiping at his eyes. “It’s dusty in here.”  
Spot smiled to himself. Race always acted so tough, even when he didn’t have to be, even when he was safe in Brooklyn with Spot in the dead of night.  
“They separated us a lot,” Race recalled. “Prob’ly scared we’s gonna riot or somethin’. I dunno how they expected us to, ‘cause they never fed us and we was all bruised and hurtin’.”  
That last piece of information struck something in Spot’s mind. He remembered how certain things caused Race to flinch, how there were certain places on his body that Spot had never seen, never been allowed to touch.  
“Can I see your shoulder?” Spot dared to ask.  
Race turned slightly, facing his left shoulder towards Spot for inspection.  
“Your other shoulder,” Spot said patiently.  
Race tensed. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Spot, he trusted the Brooklyn leader more than he’d ever trusted anyone. But he had never let his scars be seen by anyone before, not even Jack, and he was the only reason Race stayed sane in the refuge. But the last time Race had nightmares, Spot told him that the best way to come to terms with the past was to face it head-on (in less poetic terms, of course).  
Race turned so that his back was fully facing Spot. Slowly, he pulled his undershirt up his frail torso and over his shoulders. A long, thin scar travelled from the top of his shoulder down to the edge of his shoulder blade. It was obvious that it would never fully heal.  
“What the hell happened to ya?” Spot hissed.  
“What do ya think?” Race pulled his shirt back on properly. “It ain’t exactly paradise in there.”  
“They beat you up?” Spot asked in shock as Race turned to face him again.  
“Don’t act so surprised,” said Race. “Didn’t they do the same to youse?”  
“I ain’t ever been,” Spot admitted.  
Race raised an eyebrow. “Really? The mighty king of Brooklyn’s never survived the refuge?”  
Spot shrugged. “Never been dumb enough to get caught.”  
]Race laughed, and the joyful sound lifted a weight off of both boys’ chests. “I s’pose that makes me tougher than you.”  
“In your dreams, pretty boy.”  
Race laughed a little more at this, finally relaxing enough to lie back down. Spot lay next to him, pulling Race’s head to his chest.  
“D’you feel better after tellin’ me?”  
Race nodded.  
“So you admit I was right.”  
“Shut up.”  
Their breaths once again began to sync together as they fell asleep, Spot feeling relieved that his boyfriend trusted him enough to share the less-than-spectacular aspects of his life, and Race feeling safer than he ever had before.


End file.
